Imagine there’s a motorist going 110 K on a dark highway. The posted signs say Slow. Then Construction. Then Road Closed. But the driver keeps his pedal to the metal. “Those rules are for other people, not us.” The car goes off the road like Thelma and Louise.

This metaphor sums up the Liberal government since Mark Carney took over. There are warning signs all over. But he and the Justin Trudeau cabinet he inherited say the rules aren’t for us— even as their wheels leave the ground. They’re too busy announcing expensive housing plans and construction projects that won’t be built for four years, if at all.

What are the road signs? On the macro level, the government is printing money furiously to buy off the inevitable collapse even as it begs the central bank to lower interest rates. On the micro, a Toronto man who purchased a condo at the peak of the Toronto market for $880 K in 2022 has had to walk away from the five-year mortgage because the debt is worth more than the property. Which sells in a bankruptcy auction for $550 K.

In 2027, all such mortgages from that year will be coming due. What do you think will happen? This doesn’t include people who walk away before occupying. In Toronto, there is now roughly a 30 percent failure rate for condo closings, meaning many buyers are simply walking away from their pre-construction deposits. Even as tens of thousands of units are brought on stream.

The city of Toronto has $458 M in unpaid taxes on its books from 2024. (How will they paint rainbow crosswalks if this continues?) This shortfall is being experienced across the country. St. Catharines, Ont, had a 34 percent shortfall of taxed paid. Brampton has $150 M of unpaid taxes on its 2024 books. Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton face similar shortfalls. Meanwhile unemployment in these areas is reaching the 10 percent mark.

But the public seems unconcerned. They continue to elect radical city councils that address the shortfalls by jacking up their taxes even more—  while services are cut back or non-existent. In 2024 municipalities from Ontario to British Columbia announced proposed property tax increases of between 2 and 15 percent.

These economic road signs emerge from a Liberal party that used low interest rates to create Trudeau’s faux real estate boom economy in urban zones. In 2021 it deceived the purchased medias with a $71 B “boldest housing plan ever”. The housing market collapsed immediately after this stunt. No wonder Donald Trump snorts at Canada as a viable entity.

This week’s detour from reality is a $13 B plan for new modular housing (@$3.25 M per shack). To season the Real Estate Turkey the government imported 3.4 million people in four years to clog the market for homes. Asked about the failure of their venture into real estate (at the expense of Canada’s traditional products like energy, canola and soft goods) the government points to the booming TSX stock market as approval for their plans.

The polls seem to indicate that the Elbows Up crowd, who don’t recognize the water lapping at their front door, are still enthusiastic for Carney’s ongoing feud with Trump, Canada’s largest trading partner. Their media sources, protected by government grants that censor contrary news, instead distract them with tales of far-right vigilantes, wine boycotts and climate catastrophe.

The revolution in communications that has emerged in the U.S. has so far not drifted north of the border. In the U.S. old-line broadcasters are still giving out Emmys to now-cancelled Steven Colbert, who has lost much of his audience, millions in advertising and the patience of ownership. They staged an awards ceremony that frequently mentioned Hamas and Palestine but not a word about a major media presence, Charlie Kirk,  being murdered before live cameras.

No wonder they’re so shocked about the FCC cancelling Jimmy Kimmel for refusing to apologize for saying MAGA was behind the Kirk murder. The emergence of new outlets that reflect the complete spectrum has put the U.S. Media Party into fight-or-flight. For instance, startups like TBPN, a bare-bones daily talk show that riffs on Silicon Valley, has become a huge off-the-grid star outlet. It now commands appearances from Mark Zuckerberg. While the mainstream defends Kimmel.

The power of this emerging social media was shown in the pushback from the Kirk murder in which the unhinged comments of the trans and far-left communities were quickly exposed, with many in the teaching, public service and government professions (much to their surprise) summarily fired for their callous rants. Their shock reflects a portion of society that thought itself protected in their Bluesky bubble of affirmation.

In Canada the Kirk vitriol was no less nasty from outlets that see themselves as protected. @Cultmtl “Charlie Kirk died as he lived: propagating hateful myths about marginalized groups in our society. He was a profiteer and architect of America’s increasingly violent culture war. You reap what you sow.” (This from an outlet funded by the Canadian government.) CultMtl had lots of company in the self-protection circle.

“Discord, the communications platform now under scrutiny as U.S. investigators examine chat room messages involving the alleged assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is also being used by left-wing Antifa-aligned networks in Canada to organize and share dossiers on political targets”, Toronto independent journalist Caryma Sa’d.

So it was mostly American social media that outed odious Canadian comments online, forcing employers to take action against loons they’ve harboured up till now. The reaction to this culling was predictable in the mainstream media. “TorontoStar After Charlie Kirk’s death, workers learn the limits of free speech in and out of their jobs”  https://trib.al/h1wAmek The hysteria over Kimmel dwarfed even that.

But at least only half of America is in the BlueSky bubble where liberal Jew Hannah Einbinder mocked Israel which saves her tribe from extinction. Canada’s bubble is almost total, thanks to federal communications policies that smother free expression in the public sphere. So far it has resisted criticism by blunt-force object. Its aged loquitors speak with authority while ignoring the under 50s hate them for what they’re doing to the dream of home ownership.

Whether through fear or negligence, Canada’s Liberals are determined to shape their housing message for the bubble, distract from reality and pray they make it to the next election. Before the car goes over the cliff marked Do Not Enter.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

“After every armistice, you want to put us away in mothballs, like the fleet. When it comes to a little dying you’ll be sure to put us in a uniform…” Seven Days in May

In the 1964 political film Seven Days in May, a rogue Director of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conspires to launch a coup against a failing president who’s just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets. The plot is uncovered by a Marine Corps colonel, and the coup is barely averted with all the conspirators apprehended.

In 1964 the notion that the loyalty of the military/ intelligence services might be compromised was a hot topic in the days afterJFK’s assassination. After calming down in the Reagan days— remember Woody Allen’s revolution spoof Bananas?—  it has now returned.

How likely is a military/ intelligence coup? Loyalty of troops has been crucial in many coups and insurrections around the world. Famously the socialist regime of Salvador Allende was crushed in 1973 when the Chilean military staged a bloody coup. Allende and thousands were murdered as General Augusto Pinochet took over the country.

Still, the conceit in Western nations has always been “It can’t happen here”. The institutions of government are believed too strong and independent to allow themselves to be taken over by their militaries. The chattering classes prefer to see their military as Stanley Kubrick did in Dr. Strangelove— bumbling buffoons,  lackeys led by General Buck Turgidson.

Certainly in Canada, where successive Liberal government culminated with Justin Trudeau, the Kubrick model is closer to reality. DEI hiring, cuts to budgets and a slavish reliance on America to protect Canada for free have produced a Canadian military with more in common with HMS Pinafore than Vimy Ridge. From the world’s third-largest navy in 1945, Canada is now a boat that can’t float.

But something seems to have changed with the Tuesday murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. It seems a massive provocation by people who want to destroy the American society. It’s not helped by the voices on the Left claiming he brought it on himself with hate speech. @punishedmother “Maybe Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have spent years being a hateful demagogic fascist and this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he should take some personal responsibility.It will take careful leadership to prevent this boiling over.”

This growing intolerance between the political sides exposed yet again by Kirk’s assassination has made people consider the Armed Forces’ loyalty in a crisis. As in, who has it? (In pacifist Canada the current clash of cultures is that support of the military might be necessary in resisting the conservative right. Despite Bill C-23 disarming Canadians the unarmed Left might face a large, well-armed rightwing population brandishing weapons.)

In a divided America think of Tom Cruise’s JAG character in A Few Good Men confronting hardened Marine commandant played by Jack Nicholson— and you have the conflict. “You can’ t take the truth!” Fighting generals are a thing of the past when Democrats are in power. Successive presidents have used DEI to create desk generals and commanders who reflect good taste over good planning.

This DEI mission creep in the military was one of Donald Trump’s strongest planks in defeating hapless Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Canadian Liberals, meanwhile, managed to dodge their pathetic defence shortcomings only by making the 2025 election all about Trump and a 51st state, not defence or Chinese influence.

There has been evidence that some at the highest levels of the U.S. military, CIA and FBI have already shown a bias toward Democrats. In the waning days of Trump 45 Chief of Staff Mark Milley told the Chinese leadership— America’s No. 1 global rival— that he would personally tip them off if Trump launched a surprise attack on China.

In another time (or movie) Milley’s treachery would been seen as treasonous, punishable by a life in the stockade or, possibly, execution. In the hands of the DC Media Party, however, Milley’s partisan gambit was buried in the run-up to the 2020 election. As with the concurrent Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the story was made to disappear in a welter of Trump demonization and legal harassment

Now we must wonder again. Sadly for Harris, Milley and Team Obama, the Democrats were thrashed by the Trump agenda. POTUS 45—now 47— quickly began replacing lifetime loyalists in the military and bureaucrats, stifling for now the urge to purge,

Again this scenario was unthinkable a generation ago, a plot in a movie. But the governments of Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Trudeau in Canada) have created a social schism that has turned politics into a blood sport. As we know there were two attempts on Trump in the election campaign by deranged radicals. The defeated Democrats’  obsession over who controls the Supreme Court and Congress in Trump’s presidency, the repeated comparisions to Hitler, are producing greater and more strident anything-is-accepted calls from the radical Left to take to the streets and pursue civil disobedience.

In Canada Mark Carney’s Elbows Up gambit is dissipating rapidly since the election, producing active discussion of separation in Alberta and Quebec (again). This raises questions about what the military might do in the aftermath of a vote by either side to leave Canada. Might they intervene? Would they stand aside? Will tanks roll to protect a Carney Canada?

No doubt Charlie Kirk’s death will be mobilized by both sides in their appeals for the loyalty of the military should a civil war break out in the U.S. Get your generals in a row. MSNBC’s Jen Psaki has declared Trump’s tribute to Kirk “an escalation” Says legal expert Jonathan Turley, “We are already at political assassinations, so I am not sure how much more room for escalation there may be for Psaki or MSNBC.”

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.